


Blood Diamonds

by Melkoring



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Trans Simmons, kai is also trans bc im a god and i can do what i like, this started off as a brooklyn 99 au and now im dying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2018-12-22 22:38:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11976510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melkoring/pseuds/Melkoring
Summary: Simmons, an anxious IT guy trying his best to work his way up the ranks of the police force, gets dragged into the world of petty crime... and then slightly major crime.





	1. Technicalities

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao so this started off as some shitty brooklyn 99 au in my head to keep me from killing all of my coworkers, and then, like my ass after takeaway, it blew up into some whole police/crime thing. And now here we are. Come yell at me at queerglorfindel.tumblr.com if u want.
> 
> other tags/characters/relationships to be added as it updates! there's probably going to be violence/death/general illegal tomfoolery and im not sure how '''mature'''' im gonna make this yet so. yeah.
> 
> this first chapter is kinda just an introduction i guess? enjoy!

The Reds were losing. This was no surprise to anyone.

Tucker’s swagger as he waltzed up to the whiteboard, like some cheap whore parading himself for the viewing enjoyment of  whoever had the most lint in their pocket, almost made Simmon’s throw up a little in his mouth. He twirled the marker between his fingers, tearing the lid off with his teeth and spitting it in Donut’s direction, and was just about to mark down his victory when a thought made him stop.

Also unsurprising, Simmons thought. He’s probably so unused to thoughts, he’s just shut down entirely. Like the robots in those grainy sci-fi films that freak out when faced with the first semblance of a consciousness. Maybe that meant that Simmons could hack Tucker? Get him to make him coffee (he’d have to teach Tucker how, of course, since Simmons required a very specific amount of sugar and caffeine to keep himself optimally efficient). Or organise his desk (with Simmon’s precise supervision - he had a _system_ , after all). Or - you know what, perhaps this wasn’t the best idea after all.

Simmons could dream. It was the only thing keeping him from murdering all of his coworkers in cold blood, and probably end up rotting on the whiteboard as another tally for the Blues.

When he begrudgingly turned his attention back to the board, Tucker was staring directly at him.

 _No_.

He was _beaming_ at him. Pen pointed his way as though it was a King’s sceptre, and not some shitty dollar store marker that he’d had to buy himself because _no one bothered to stock up any of the fucking stationary in this goddamn place_ , and that awful smile that just screamed _‘come on, sweetheart, get me to pay child support. If you dare’_.

Simmons scowled at him. He hadn’t heard what Tucker had said, but a scowl had never failed him yet. “What? Is there something on my face?”

“Yeah,” said Tucker through his ghastly grin. “Just below your nose - no, up a little. To the left. No, _your_ left, moron, not mine. Yeah - yeah, just there. It’s my victory! All over your face. Might wanna wipe that off before Sarge gets back. Come on up, then.”

“What? Why?” He could already feel his ears burning. That was the third time he had fallen for one of Tucker’s stupid jokes that day, and everybody else knew it.

Well, excuse him for actually giving a shit about have a clean face. He seemed to be the only goddamn one.

“I’ve decided, as a gracious winner, that I want _you_ , a member of my lowly, defeated enemy to experience what it’s actually like to write a point on the board. Come on up!”

“Technically,” said Simmons, “I’m a tech guy. I’m not on any team.”

Tucker pretended to consider this for a short second. “Uh, technically? Sarge is still head of your branch, so I know where your filthy Red loyalties lie. So, technically? You’re losing.”

Tucker thrust the pen into his hands and took a step back, gesturing flamboyantly to the side of the board marked _‘Blue!!!!’_.

He made it the wiggliest, scratchiest line he could manage - and then wiped it off, because it looked odd next to the row upon row of neatly organised tally marks, and drew a straight one instead. He might have been a loser, but he wasn’t about to get _too_ sore about it.

This was all stupid, anyway.

“You know,” Simmons said, shoving the marker back into Tucker’s chest, “Church is d-.

Tucker cut him off. “ _On his sabbatical_ ,” he hissed, side-eyeing Caboose, who - as usual - didn’t appear to be paying much attention to anything that was going on around him.

Simmons swallowed. “Uh. Right. Church is still on sabbatical. So, _technically_ , Sarge is your superior, too.”

“And there’s only two of us!” Donut piped up from where he lounged across a desk, fiddling with Caboose’s hair. “It’s no fun without a third!”

He cringed. “Yeah,” he said weakly. “What… what Donut said. Sort of.”

Caboose nodded his head very seriously. Simmons wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to - wasn’t he on the Blue squad?

“What about Sarge?” he said eventually. “Isn’t he, like? Your Boss-Dad?”

“He’s not our dad!” Simmons snapped, but he was drowned out by the cacophony of Tucker scrambling - like the worst monkey Simmons had ever seen - on top of a desk.

“Yeah!” he shouted from his new vantage point. “Technically! There’s three of you! And there’s only two of us, and we’re still beating you! So, screw you!”

“What about Carolina?”

“She doesn’t count!”

“She’s basically your boss, now!”

“She works for an entirely different department! She’s on major crimes, she’s just looking out for us because Sarge is fucking useless! So, no, she doesn’t count.”

Caboose hummed intelligently. “Actually,” he mused, “I have this theory! Would you like to hear my theory? Okay! So. My theory is that she is actually a genetically-modified super-secret agent working for a freaky freelance project, and she’s only supervising us here because she’s working undercover because everyone thinks she’s dead!”

“Uh.” Tucker broke the silence. “Sure, Caboose.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Donut, “that sounds about right.”

They both looked at Simmons.

Simmons sighed. “Yeah. Sure thing, Caboose.”

He wished this was an unusual day.


	2. Autopilot (a.k.a. it's not technically 'trespassing' if your house is a shithole)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what up, is this a same day chapter update? what the fuck man, that's the fanfic equivalent of seeing a unicorn.
> 
> meet grif, the world's laziest burglar, who apparently thinks he knows more about interior design than simmons, who spent at least five minutes planning the layout of his apartment, thank you very much, asshole.

As usual, there was no one to greet Simmons when he arrived home after work. It was only out of force of habit that he knocked on his door, stale paint peeling off under his knuckles and littering the floor like the cigarette ashes of the old woman across the hall. He called out a cheerless “I’m home” to the family of spiders living on his ceiling. They didn't respond, either.

At least they enjoyed Blood Gulch apartments, because Simmons sure as hell didn’t.

Under his heavy work boots, the floorboards popped and creaked like an old man’s bones - or maybe that was the couple upstairs, fighting yet again. Or his nextdoor neighbour with another couple of ‘friends’ that Simmons was a hundred percent sure were drug dealers, but couldn’t quite prove it because they knew he was a cop (technically, an IT guy for the police, but he was trying his best to work his way up) and so never stuck around long enough to say hi. He kicked them off onto the lawn chair-slash-dining room table, his jacket following shortly after. His binder was beginning to dig into his sides, and there was a dull ache beginning to spread across his chest - he’d been wearing it for far too long, he knew that. He’d squeezed into this morning at around seven and - Simmons checked his watch - it was now - _holy shit, it was almost nine_.

_Fourteen hours._

No wonder he felt like he couldn’t breath. This was not healthy. He knew he was pushing it when he wore it non-stop for a usual eight-hour work day, but, Christ, he had meant to take it off for a bit in the bathroom during lunch, and then that whole Tucker-fiasco had happened with the leaderboard, and it had completely slipped his mind, and -

Simmons stopped.

Every day, without fail, Simmons knocked on his door. He shook his bag to ensure that his keys were in there, and, sure enough, the little bell that he had attached to them sang out cheerfully from the side pocket, underneath his medications and a book of receipts. He unlocked his door, jiggling the latch a little to knock it free (it always jammed, especially in summer when the wood swelled) and he called out to the spiders and whatever other bugs had decided to live rent-free in his shitty apartment.

It was autopilot. He did it every night, and a similar thing every morning - shake his bag for the sound of his keys, check he had his drug purse and wallet, jiggle the latch until it opened and say goodbye to the spiders.

And autopilot was a quaint little creature, where even the slightest discrepancies were deleted by the brain in favour of the routine.

This was perhaps - no, this was _definitely_ \- the reason why Simmons was halfway finished with unfastening his chest binder before he realised that, for the first time since he had moved into Blood Gulch apartments, someone had _replied_.

The man in front of him blinked. “Uh, hey? Hello? Jesus, am I invisible or are you just rude?”

Simmons screamed.

_Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck._

_FUCK._

“Woah,” the man said, “calm down, dude.”

Simmons did not calm down.

_Oh, fuck._

_Oh, FUCK._

It was the only word Simmons could remember, and his body, it seemed, had done a runner on him. All systems down. Abandon all stations. Self-destruct in three, two, one -

“Fuck!”

There were no weapons nearby. He had been meaning to buy pepper spray ever since that one guy had yelled at him in a grocery store line, hell, he had written it on his to-do list and had meant to do it this evening, if he hadn't stayed late at work because Tucker had wasted so much fucking time with his stupid smugness, and now he was going to die, and -

His throat felt dry. His hands were shaking. Had he taken his anxiety medication this morning? Yes, of course he had. It was all apart of his routine, which apparently he couldn’t even trust anymore, on account of it completely ignoring any possibilities for strange men to break into his apartment.

This is what he got for getting too into all those stupid ‘minimalist lifestyle’ articles, that he only read because they made him feel a little better about, well, not actually being able to afford that much.

The man, with a rather insulting lack of effort, was trying to shush him. “Hey, dude, chill. I’m not here to hurt you. Just to, like, you know. Rob you. At least, I was going to, until -”

It was like all the air had been punched out of Simmon’s lungs. His boa-constrictor of a binder wasn’t helping either, and his head was beginning to feel like that one time Donut had given him a shot of cake flavoured vodka during some ridiculous birthday outing. His brain had stopped making that ‘system-error’ sound, and for a moment Simmons thought it had rebooted; but then all the information came back at once in a wave of half-baked plans of attack and the odd thought or two about how he wanted to be buried.

He still hadn’t decided if he wanted to be cremated or not. He still hadn’t finalised his will.

Oh, god, today was just one disaster after another.

The man stepped towards him, one hand outstretched. “Hey, man, you okay?”

Simmons knew before he even opened his mouth that it was a mistake. Too many thoughts, too many words, all spiralling at once across his body and feeding the tremors in his limbs. He tried to force them all out at once, just to get some peace in his head - some damn space to _think_. But they crumbled like ash on his tongue, and left just a dry huff in their place.

“Do you want a minute?”

Slowly, Simmons nodded.

The man grinned at him with more merriness than Simmons was sure home invaders were supposed to have. “Cool,” he said. “I’m going to sit down for a minute - breaking and entering takes more out of you than people think. Fucking CSI makes it looks so easy. You mind if I move your shoes off of this chair? Awesome, thanks.”

Simmons watched as the man tossed his shoes and coat from the lawn chair and sprawled himself into it like he owned it. Which, he might well, considering he was apparently planning on stealing everything Simmons owned.

Which wasn’t actually very much, but it was still pretty rude. Like he told Tucker every day when they bickered, it was the _principle_ that mattered most.

With one eye locked on him, Simmons backed away slowly into his kitchen. He ducked behind his one kitchen counter and tore off his binder, gasping as air flooded back into his lungs.

Now was his time to think. He was on the third floor of Blood Gulch, and his poor excuse for a balcony was across the room - too high to jump from, and too far away, anyhow.

The door was his next best option, but there was no telling if it would jam or not, and those extra seconds could be the difference between sweet freedom and being stabbed on his own shitty floor. And, if the stains that, like the mattress, also came free with the apartment were anything to judge by, he wouldn’t have been the first, either.

So. No escape route. That was fine, that was okay.

Once, when he was seven, to get him out of the house, his mother had sent him to one of those dance classes that required a lot of self-esteem and fancy footwear - two things which Simmons was desperately lacking in. If worst came to worst, he could always attempt to fight the guy with whatever martial arts that a single dance class seventeen years ago had endowed him with.

That, or he could perform something from _The Nutcracker_ , and while the guy was distracted, punch him in the face. But he needed music for that, and Donut still hadn’t given his CD of the Donetsk Symphonic Orchestra performance back.

So, that plan was out the window.

Also, he couldn’t punch to save his life. Ironic, since now he might need to literally punch someone to save his life.

He would dwell on that irony later.

If there was a later, that was.

 _A weapon._ That was what he needed. If not to actually attack with, then to at least intimidate the guy with. He had once tried to get into baseball to bond with his dad, unsurprisingly to no avail, and he had thrown out the bat shortly after.

There were probably a couple of pieces of cutlery in his kitchen drawer that were actually made of metal.

This was just like that one scene in _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , where the cave troll was trying to break into Chamber of Mazarbul, and the Fellowship were stuck using whatever they could find around the Balin’s tomb to block the door.

A thought struck him.

So, Simmons did own a weapon, after all.

It all happened very fast. Simmons, leaping - well, clambering - over his kitchen counter and bolting across the room to where he had the sword mounted heroically above what probably used to be a fireplace before the guy who lived here before him filled it with cocaine, and Vick was forced to block them all up. The strange man, who appeared to be in the midst of dozing off in Simmons’ lawn chair, jumped to his feet with a matching lack of grace and lunged at him.

“Hold up - wait! I said I wasn’t gonna -”

“Stay back!” It would have been a lot scarier had Simmons not stuttered through every word. He brandished Sting as menacingly as he could. “Stay back, I’m warning you!”

The man snorted. “It’s not glowing green, dickwad. Clearly I’m not a goblin, or whatever.”

Simmons lowered Sting instinctively, just enough to stare the man dead in the eyes. “Did you just - do you know anything about _The Lord of the Rings_ ? It glows blue, you idiot! And when _orcs_ are nearby, not goblins!”

“Well, excuse me, Dildo.”

“His name is Frodo!”

“Yeah, asshole, I know. I was just insulting you.”

“Well, then -” Simmons could feel his ears burning again. Fuck his pasty skin; was this really the time?

 _No._ The answer to that, Simmons decided very quickly, was no.

“You -” he said, pointing Sting into the man’s chest, “- are going to tell me who you are and what the fuck you are doing in my apartment, before I call the police.”

_Thank god he doesn’t know that I actually am the police._

He could see the man swallowing, watching the apple in his throat bob curiously as he considered this. Eventually, he shoved out a hand. “Uh, hi? You can call me Grif. No handshake, then? Cool, cool. Rude, but cool.” The hand was retracted. “I was, uh. Not gonna lie, dude, I was totally gonna rob you.”

“You were going to _rob_ me?!”

“Jesus, yes, I said that like, two seconds ago. Stop screeching, will you? I was gonna, but then…”

Grif trailed off. Simmons eyed him suspiciously.

“Well?” Simmons said, giving him another resentful poke with Sting. “What, did I interrupt you? Did I interrupt your robbery? Are my things not good enough for you to take?”

With a conflicted concoction of emotions, Simmons saw the man wince. He gestured around sheepishly. “I mean? Let’s just say that your stuff is totally not worth going to jail for. No offense.”

“Offense taken!” Simmons screeched. “Offense very much taken! I can’t believe you would just - just break into my house -”

“I’m not really sure you could call this a house, but okay.”

“- and plan on stealing all of my hard-earned things that I bought with my hard-earned money -”

“Again, I think I saw those lawn chairs in the dumpster outside of Walmart, but whatever floats your boat, man.”

“- and then you just! Decide that you don’t want it! Burglars can’t be choosers!”

“I don’t think that’s the phrase -”

“Please!” Simmons gasped, remembering just then that, while ranting was all well and good, breathing was generally required by biological law to live. “Please, I have had a long and very awful day, so will you just let me continue scolding you for the next five minutes?”

“Can I sit down again?”

“If you must.”

“Sweet. Thanks, dude.” Grif settled himself back into the lawn chair. “Okay, I’m comfy. Wow, is this a cup holder? Snazzy, man. Please continue.”

“Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, please explain to me what exactly is wrong with all of my belongings, and why they aren’t good enough for you to steal.”

Grif pulled a face. “Is that really what you’re focussed on here? Not the breaking and entering part?”

At that, Simmons felt yet more heat in his ears, this time coursing down his cheekbones and fading the spattering of freckles across his nose. “Well - I’m still upset about that part, of course, but I figured I could maybe get some cash from the insurance. If you actually stole anything, that is.”

His answer was a shrug and a nod. “Alright, fair game. You’re kinda weird, but I like you.” Sat down in his budget lawn chair, he could almost pass for a Sultan surveying his latest selection of gifts that servants had bought him from all across the world to win his favour, pointing and picking at every little detail. “Well, first of all, your Feng Shui is _way_ off. It’s almost, like, the opposite of Feng Shui. What you have is Shui Feng, and I don’t know what that is, or how you have managed it, but I know it’s not good.

“Secondly: jeez, man, are you okay? I mean, you really live like this?”

“I make it work,” Simmons mumbled. He wasn’t sure why he was letting a burglar not only berate him for his interior design choices - or lack thereof - but also make him feel bad about it. It had been a long day.

“Really?” Grif scoffed. “ _You make it work?_ I’m sat in a lawn chair right now! Do you even have a bed?”

Simmons had once had a bed - well, a mattress, at least. It was free with the apartment, but he was pretty sure that Vick, Blood Gulch’s landlord, had gotten it from the old hotel down the road that was going out of business, and after one night of sleeping on it, Simmons swore on his life that he had seen a bedbug on his arm when he woke up the next morning.

He’d moved his blanket to the sofa after that. It wasn’t technically a sofa bed, but the frame was (luckily?) loose enough for him to pull it forward a little and fill in the extra space with whatever coats and pillows he could find.

Reluctantly, Simmons pointed to the sofa. “I like sleeping on the couch,” he lied, despite the fact that Grif clearly wasn’t buying whatever he was trying to sell. “You know, saves money, minimalist… environmental… refined palette...”

“Are you just saying words that you’ve read in magazines?”

“No.”

He was definitely just saying words he had read in magazines.

“Oh, yeah? Then, tell me, oh Master of Minimalism, what you are going to have for dinner? Or is your diet minimalist as well?”

Simmons pictured his empty fridge. Not that he didn’t like to eat, it was just that his anxiety medication was expensive, and - after a long internal debate of weighing the pros and cons - he decided that he could get free biscuits in the kitchen at work, but unfortunately the precinct fridge didn’t stock free Sertraline.

“I ate earlier,” he said.

He was starving.

Another snort. “Sure, dude. Whatever. Listen, sorry about the whole… me trying to rob you thing. Now I just feel bad. Way to make a guy feel guilty, huh?”

Pulling himself up from the lawn chair, Grif brushed himself down and began to rummage around in his pockets, which were apparently made of the same material as Mary Poppins’ god damn carpet bag. He pulled out crumpled receipt after receipt, various watches and wallets and bits of cheap jewellery that were clearly ‘pre-owned’, half empty bags of snacks, and probably the whole continent of Russia, if Simmons had let him carry on. Eventually, he pulled out a rather expensive looking leather coin purse and shoved it into Simmons’ chest.

“Buy yourself a pizza, or something, okay? You’re scrawny as shit. Try the pizza place two streets across - you know, Mama Louisa’s? Tell them I sent you, they’ll give you extra cheese, and maybe a drink or something if you ask nice enough.”

Grif was halfway through Simmons’ window before Simmons could process what was happening.

“Save me the leftovers, man. I love Mama Louisa’s.”

With that, the window frame slammed shut. Another clatter, and Simmons realised that Sting had dropped from his hands.

What the _fuck_.


	3. Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> our good ol' dick reconsiders his life choices, makes some different choices, and then reconsiders those in an endless cycle of hating everything he does
> 
> also actual plot will arrive at some point, i swear. i swear....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im on a fuckin roll today

The next morning was a blur; so much so that Richard Simmons - for possibly the first time in his life - actually forgot to complete his morning routine, and it had set his whole groove off for the entire day. Everything felt… odd. Like his whole morning had gone to sleep with wet hair, and now - no matter how much product he tried to fix it with - it still looked funny every time it passed by a mirror.

“Stand to attention, Simmons!” Sarge had barked at him as he walked into the precinct that morning, and despite that ever-present need to please, Simmons could only manage a grunt.

Sarge wasn’t impressed, which was impressive, because he was always unimpressed and somehow now looked extra unimpressed.

“I said, stand to attention! You’re late!”

“No, I’m not,” Simmons started to say, and immediately felt awful. “I mean, sir - we start at eight, and I always arrive at seven on the dot, so, if anything, I must be early.”

“Are you sassing me, Simmons?”

“No! Not at all, sir, I just -”

“Good! A soldier should never sass his superior. Get to your desk. _Now_ , Simmons.”

“Yes, sir.”

Simmons could feel himself deflating more and more with every step. He felt like one of those balloons that clowns give out to kids at a carnival, the kind that had already gone limp by the time you got home, except it wasn’t a clown at a carnival, but a guy in a funny wig behind the hot dog stand at a county fair.

His dad had never taken him to any carnivals, or even any county fairs, as a kid. Maybe that’s why he didn’t like them.

Wonderful. Now he was thinking about his father, the true dirt icing on top of the shit cake. The only way things could get worse was if Tucker were here.

He settled into his chair and turned on his computer, the screen flickering to life obediently under his fingers. Immediately, the computer’s inbuilt clock flashed in the corner of the screen, along with the shrieking chorus of eighty-two email notifications from various coworkers pinging into his mailbox.

The numbers blinked at Simmons mockingly. 8:12am.

Well, fuck. Had he overslept? He didn’t own an alarm clock, but his body had never failed him in the three years of working at the precinct.

He made a mental note to apologise to Sarge, maybe with a gift, and double-clicked on his inbox.

A large portion of the emails were chainmail from Donut, who was apparently still living in the early 2000s. Then there were the usual two-sentence-max, no-punctuation messages from Caboose, all sent within three minutes of each other:

 

_simmons my computer is broken can you fix it thanks love u_

 

_i didnt break the computer it was tucker he was breaking it when i got here_

 

_nevermind tucker turned it off at the wall it is not broken but i still love u thanks bye bye_

 

_simmons i spilled juice on my keyboard can you fix it tucker did it he spilled the juice thanks_

 

There were a couple from Sarge, written in all caps; at first, Simmons had thought that Sarge just didn’t know how to type properly, but once, when he had been looking through his desk for some old reports, he noticed that - for some goddamn reason unknowable to anyone other than Sarge - the caps lock key had been pried out from its home on the keyboard, and was, in fact, pinned to the opposite wall with a knife.

He'd mentioned it to Sarge the next day.

"Real soldiers don't use lower case letters," he had said, as if that explained literally anything.

Simmons hadn't mentioned it again.

There was office gossip from Tucker - ignored and blocked; a few regulatory updates from Carolina - printed and annotated, and pinned neatly to the corkboard circling his desk; and, finally, a rare email from the precinct’s only medic, a guy known only as Doc, which consisted entirely of him rambling on about some mandatory check up for all of the detectives (Simmons wasn’t one, but he knew, with a renewed spring in his step, that Doc was purposely including him).

With a sigh and a crack of his knuckles, Simmons began to chip away at the block of emails. _No, he could not fix Caboose’s keyboard because he couldn’t exactly hack into the juice and make it stop messing with all the electrics. Ask Sarge, or buy a new one, buddy._

_Yes, Caboose, I love you, too._

_No, Sarge, it is not necessary for you to cover up your web camera because it is unlikely that the government are keeping such a close eye on a shitty little precinct that mostly dealt with minor vandalism and petty theft, on a good day. But whatever makes you happy, sir._

_Caboose, for the last time, please stop putting so many stickers on Freckles’ wheels - I’m sure he likes it very much, but at this rate you are going to jam him up from all the glue and you won’t be able to move at all, which kind of defeats the point of a mobility vehicle. Yes, he does look very handsome. No, this does not change my response._

_Tucker, for the love of god, I don’t care how much ‘action’ you got last night with the secretary from wherever you’re hanging around these days. My email is for serious IT issues only, please stop using it as a high-school lunch table._

_No, Tucker. The ‘stick up my ass’ does not count as a serious IT issue. Please go back to your own squad, you don’t even technically work here. How did you even get this email?_

_Donut; please stop giving Tucker all of my contact details._

“What if he needs you?”

With a jerk of his hand, suddenly Simmons’ coffee was decorating the front of his only clean shirt.

From behind his monitor Simmons could see Donut’s head peeking out, face illuminated by the pinks and yellows of his own desktop background and the thrum of eighties techno music beating alongside Simmons own, startled heart. No matter how many pairs of headphones they bought him, Donut still insisted on playing his music through the speakers. If Simmons thought Donut was smart enough, he would be sure that Donut did it purely because it annoyed Simmons.

But he _didn’t_ think Donut was smart enough to do that. Which, unfortunately, meant that Simmons couldn’t even be properly angry at him for him. It wasn’t bad intention, it was just bad taste.

“Tucker doesn’t need me. He doesn’t even work here! Carolina has her own office where him and Caboose can piss around as much as their little hearts desire. I don’t know why they insist on doing it here.”

“I suppose Carolina is technically Sarge’s boss as well, which means they _kind of_ work here. Don’t tell Sarge I said that, though.”

“I won’t if you promise not to give Tucker my home address.”

Donut sent him a dazzling smile, which gave Simmons the impression that he already had. “My lips are sealed!”

Sure, Donut, Simmons found himself thinking. Sealed about as well as Tucker’s legs.

Donut was strange, not because he was a bad guy, but because… he was almost _too good_ of a guy. Suspiciously good. Like he was being filmed at all times by a TV crew, and had to show off his brightest smile at every given occasion, on the off chance that the paparazzi might get a sneaky picture of his bad side and it would be plastered across every social media platform for weeks.

Simmons was currently working on a theory that Donut actually was apart of some reality TV show, where Simmons himself was probably the butt of every joke. It wouldn’t surprise him. But, despite all of his eerily perfect misgivings, he hated Donut the least out of everyone in the office.

Donut pulled up his chair to Simmons’ desk and leant forward, head in his hands - not so distinctive from a glamour shot, Simmons noted.

“Why were you late today? Late night?” The wiggling eyebrows made Simmons feel sick to his stomach. He did _not_ need this right now.

“No,” Simmons snapped. He turned back to his email.

Donut scooched his chair a little closer. “You can tell me, Simmons! I’m your best friend, aren’t I?”

“Who told you that?”

“Oh, just a little birdy.”

“That bird is a filthy liar, and we both know it, Donut.”

Another ping from his inbox.

_freckles is broken again i am crying please come help me make him better i love him and tucker broke him_

This fucking place was like a kindergarten. “I need to go,” he said around a sigh. "Duty calls."

“Oh, come on, Simmons! I won’t let you leave until you tell me who you gave your flower to!”

“Okay, first of all? Never say that to me again. Second of all, _never say that to me again_. Third, it’s none of your fucking business! Apparently, unlike you, I have a job to do, and right now that job is babysitting Caboose because he’s jammed Freckles up again with fucking Scratch-N-Sniff. And fourth? Never. Fucking. Say that to me again.”

Another reason that Donut was strange was because, one might make the argument, that his best qualities were also his worst qualities. Simmons had never quite seen a dynamic, personality cocktail like Donut before, and he didn’t want to admit it but it piqued the interest of the younger Simmons who had taken a couple of psych courses to make up for some extra credits in college.

If there was one word to describe Donut then it was, without a doubt, _persistent_. He pursued everything like a dog chasing a tennis ball: stubbornly, tail wagging, probably drooling…

Interior design, his work, his goddamn innuendos which Simmons was certain couldn’t be accidental. All of which were executed with as much perfection as Franklin Delano Donut could muster: which was a fair amount. He was actually one of the better detectives in the precinct, even if their leaderboard did say otherwise. And, unlike Tucker, he actually handed in his reports on time, all perfectly typed up in Coronet font.

Simmons could really respect that.

What he couldn’t respect, however, was Donut _persistently_ invading his personal space and waxing poetic nonsense about _flowers_.

“It’s not what you’re thinking! Get that grin off of your face, asshole.” Simmons wrenched his arm from Donut’s iron grip. “There was just some guy in my house, that’s all.”

Perhaps the wrong choice of phrasing.

Donut’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.

“A _guy_ in your _house_ ! Oh, my dear Simmons, this sounds _exactly_ like what I am thinking.”

If his face got any hotter then he was sure he would spontaneously combust, which - strangely enough - was actually looking like a pretty good option right now.

And, oh look, there was Tucker. Right on time to make things worse. Simmons sure loved his job sometimes.

Rocket-propelled by a kick off of the wall to Sarge’s office, Tucker - much like how he forced himself into every situation where there was the slightest chance to show off - literally barraged into the back of Simmons disappointingly non-wheelie office chair.

“What? Simmons got laid? All right, go you, Simmons! Finally getting some action!” he pretended to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye, dabbing it with a report that he whipped off of Simmons’ desk before he could react.

“No!” Simmons snatched the paper from his hands and began to smooth out the creases. “You don’t even work here, Tucker, so shut up or piss off. Or both. Preferably both, actually.”

Donut, throwing an arm around Simmons’ shoulders (which was promptly thrown off) with the apathetic solidarity that only arose between two coworkers who didn’t actually speak very much but got along in comfortable-enough silence, shot Tucker his dirtiest look. It wasn’t very menacing, Simmons decided, but the thought was still there, and he appreciated that.

“Simmons’ love life is nothing to do with you, Lavernius." He turned back to Simmons. "So. How was it?”

“He broke into my fucking house!”

Donut nodded solemnly. “Oh, right. Of course, of course, I understand you. But did you fuck him?”

“ _I didn’t fuck him, Donut._ Jesus Christ, he broke into my house! He was going to steal all of my stuff and then didn’t because apparently my stuff isn’t even worth stealing! So now, not only am I yet more paranoid and anxious than ever, a feat which I never thought I would be able to accomplish, but I’m also sad, because a burglar insulted my lawn chair.”

“You have a lawn chair in your living room?” Tucker asked.

Simmons bit his lip. Thank God he had decided to leave out the part about Sting. “It’s cheap, and… minimalist. Refined palette. I don’t need to explain my life to you, Tucker, fuck off.”

“I’m just trying to take an interest in our favourite IT guy! We never talk, Simmons, why is that?”

“Because you’re an asshole and I hate you?”

“Possibly, possibly. Or, better idea, maybe it’s because you respect me so much. I understand that I can be intimidating sometimes, but I just want you to know that I care about you, and I only want to make sure that you meet the right guy and -” Tucker glanced at Donut, a snigger already on his lips, “- keep your flower in check.”

Where was that spontaneous combustion that fate promised Simmons so long ago? Any minute now. Any minute now, and he could burst into flames, and hopefully the embers would take Tucker and Donut with him.

Stiffly, Simmons stood. “That’s it. I’m leaving.”

Tucker’s face dropped. “What? You can’t leave! What about Caboose? I don’t know what he said to you, but I didn’t break Freckles, I swear, and he won’t let me near the damn thing. And all those robberies recently! I need you to proofread my notes, dude!”

“I don’t care.” The words felt alien on his lips. He’d never said that before, never given up a day of work. God knows how many years at this awful job, and he’d never taken a sick day - not one. Perhaps now this was the time to change this.

Or, at least, perhaps now was the time to leave before he inevitably changed his mind.

“Caboose is _your_ coworker, Tucker. Not mine. I’m not your fucking IT guy and I’m not going to spend the rest of my day digging stickers out of Freckles’ wheels. Donut, I wish I could say it was nice to chat with you today.”

“But…?” Donut trailed off, hopefully.

Simmons shrugged. “But nothing. I wish I could say it, but I can’t. See you on monday, assholes. Suck it.”

Before his body revolted against him, he strolled out the door, adrenaline coursing like molten metal through his veins. That was possibly the only good side of having an anxiety disorder: an adrenaline rush every time you did the smallest thing, which - very occasionally - made Simmons feel like a superhero, or as though he had just dramatically dropped a microphone at the end of a speech.

The emphasis here being on _very occasionally_ , and it didn’t last long enough for Simmons to even reach the gelato shop next door to the precinct.

Oh, god. He should go back. Sarge was going to be furious.

No, said the Simmons in his mind that was still drunk off of the last dregs of excitement, just imagine what Tucker is going to be like. Awful, that’s what. You don’t need to imagine it, because I can already tell you now that it is going to be awful, and you know it, Simmons.

And his apartment had just been broken into. And he was already running low on medication, and Carolina did say once to him that if he need to take a day off, for whatever reason, then she would handle Sarge.

And, perhaps - _perhaps_ \- Simmons maybe deserved a day off.

Yes. Simmons kept repeating that to himself, whispering it to the rhythm of his footsteps as he made his way towards Blood Gulch. Maybe he _did_ deserve a day off. He did deserve this.

The only other choice was to ponder all the ways that Sarge was going to tear him a new one, regardless of Carolina’s superior intervention.

_You deserve this, Simmons. You’re not doing anything bad, you deserve this._

The elevator hadn’t been functional since Simmons had moved in - from the layers of dust and scraps of metal barricading its door, he didn’t think it ever had been. The stairs of Blood Gulch were uneven, but they were his only choice. During his first year here, he had tripped up every single time on the tenth step of the second flight, but now he knew to jump a little.

_You deserve this, Simmons. Carolina will back you up._

Second door, on the left of the stairs. He could smell the cigarette smoke seeping out from underneath the door across from him, and knew that the old woman who lived there was in. He hadn’t ever thought that the smell of stale, dollar-store roll ups could be comforting, but it slowed the pounding of his heart just a touch as he passed by the door.

_You deserve this, Simmons. Taking a sick day is fine, Tucker does it all the time._

He knocked on his door. Three times, like always.

_You deserve this, Simmons._

He shook his bag before wrestling with the zip to the side pocket and groping around for the cold metal of his keys.

_You deserve this, Simmons._

His hand came out empty.

_Fuck._

He shook his bag again. No jingle, just the rustle of his prescription pills and the paperwork he had taken from his work desk to entertain him in the evening.

_Oh, God, no._

Simmons threw his bag onto the floor and - ignoring the dust that caked his knees as soon as he sank down - began to tear through it. No keys, no keys, _no fucking keys_.

It was taking all he had not to break down, right then and there.

_Oh, God. No keys. The keys were inside, and Simmons was not inside, and that’s where the keys were, where Simmons was not._

Fucking hell, things were really spiralling today. This is what happened when he skipped out on his morning routine - he left work early and had a panic attack in front of his own front door.

Frantically, Simmons checked his pockets again; lint, a couple of pennies that he almost mistook for the jangling of his keys and got his hopes up, which made him feel all the worse when it turned out to only be a couple of cents. Not even a good amount of money.

At one point, his hands curled around something round and unfamiliar - not his keys, but curious enough to get a rise from him. He tugged it from his pocket - something with a buckle, clearly, as it snagged on the loose strings of his pocket hem, and he had to snap it off with his teeth because his hands were trembling too much.

The wallet that Grif had given him. He’d spent most of the cash inside on food last night, but there was possibly enough change for him to get a taxi to Donut’s. That was one option, despite the fact that he really wasn’t in the mood to see Donut.

Then… there was another option.

Simmons weighed his options. Wasting his last few bucks just for Donut to talk about his flower all night? Or… break into his own apartment in broad daylight.

The second one, Simmons decided, as he shoved the wallet back into his pocket.

Definitely the second one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact! Simmons' anxiety is heavily based off of my own so now y'all know that lil tidbit about me. i actually also put bells on all of my Important Items bc there is nothing worse than being halfway to somewhere and suddenly panicking and wondering if u have ur keys or ur wallet. so yeah, pro tip for other peeps with anxiety who worry about that kind of stuff too, just cover ur shit with bells and all u gotta do is shake ur bag and hear that sweet sweet jingle and ur heart will calm the fuck down trust me


	4. Krispy Kremes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a lil grif chapter for y'all bc my writing style is essentially just throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping for the best.

Dexter Grif had never intended to be a cat burglar. It had just sort of…

 _Happened_.

When he was five, he had wanted to become a chef on the television; the ones with the brilliantly white smiles and perfect bodies that gave him the impression that they never actually ate any of the food they cooked. His dreams sobered a little as he grew up; maybe not a chef, but he could probably get a job as the guy who holds the boom mic on a cooking show: the crew usually got to eat the dishes anyway, right? Since the chef sure as hell didn’t.

But he didn’t have the ‘right body’ for TV. His sister, Kaikaina - much as he loved her - had never let him forget it. Not because she wanted to upset him, but having dreams of stardom was a little… delusional compared to the reality of being two poor kids lost in Brooklyn after their mother ran off to join the circus. It was bullshit, really. What was wrong with a fat chef? Surely it just meant that their food was worth eating?

Where his mother had lived in Hawaii, his weight had been _celebrated_. In Brooklyn, he was the ‘before’ picture on the glossy front covers of trashy magazines.

So, he rearranged his thoughts a little and settled for being a boring, non-televised chef.

But there weren’t any restaurants in his neighbourhood.

Another rearrangement. No biggie.

A cafe would do, right? Baking pastries and fresh bread every morning, learning the breakfast orders of his regulars during the morning rush before he ever learnt their names. He would call it _Muffin Top_ , as a giant fuck you to the entertainment industry, and it would be right on the corner of his old street, next to the entrance to the subway, so people could grab a coffee or a bite of something on the go. Anybody who worked in on television wouldn’t be allowed inside.

As usual, however, life decided otherwise. It turned out cafes were pretty expensive.

Okay, Grif decided, then a waiter. He could work his way up: how hard could it be?

If only waiting tables paid a little more than minimum wage, and whatever spare change customers decided to leave alongside the crumbs on their plates. Kai was hungry, Grif was hungry, the rent was late, and people were still so focussed on rushing from A to C that they forget to tip B in the middle.

It made him angry. The sort of anger that grew on him slowly, like the five o’clock shadow he was always too lazy to shave off every morning from the night before, until one day he looked in the bathroom mirror after getting fired from yet another waiting job for snapping at customers and slacking during his shifts, and suddenly he had grown a full beard.

Kai was also struggling to hold down a job. She’d had a couple of cleaning jobs but the season was wearing the hotels thin in winter, and her hours were getting cut worryingly often.

The rent still hadn't been paid.

He’d long since forgotten his dreams of parading the silver screen as a popular cooking personality, and the subsequent three cooking books he would release that focussed mainly on bringing proper Hawaiian food to Brooklyn.

Now, he just wanted to eat.

“I could strip?” Kai had suggested once. Grif wasn’t sure if she was joking.

“No,” he said. “Too dangerous. Too many late nights, too many creeps.”

“Oh, and you working the late shifts at all of those shifty big corporate cafes brings in any different people? What if you get stabbed by some drunk guy because you accidentally made him a soy mocha frappa-bullshit instead of skinny?”

“Why would someone stab me?”

Kai shrugged. “I don’t know. People get stabbed all the time, don’t they?”

“Are… you going to stab me?”

“Not gonna lie, Dex, I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

He clapped her the back with one big paw of a hand. “Thanks, sis.”

“No problem.”

With his hand splayed on Kai’s back, he felt the gurgles of her stomach before he heard them. And it was impossible _not_ to hear them; it was worse than the roar of the daily traffic jam during rush hour that woke him up every morning.

“You hungry?” he asked, at the same time that Kai said, “That wasn’t me.”

He knew that look on her face; Kai was an awful liar. She smiled too much, and Grif had a theory that it was either because she knew that he hated to see her upset, or because it was a massive middle finger to the cards that fate had dealt her in the awful universal poker game of life.

Without another word, Grif slipped his bag off of his shoulder. He didn’t have anything to put in it besides torn up scratch cards anyway, and wasn’t entirely sure himself why he always wore it: but today it came in handy. He watched in delight as Kai’s eyes widened at the two bagels he produced with a small flourish.

“Did you… did you steal these from work?”

“No,” Grif said instinctively, a little too fast to be believable. “I mean… well, maybe. Look, they were going to throw them out anyway because they technically aren’t _fresh_ anymore, but that’s a fucking waste and they taste fine. What are they going to do? Fire me for saving the environment?”

Kai already had crumbs around her mouth, catching on the ring in her lip and on the collar of her shirt. She’d half finished it in two bites, and was already greedily eyeing Grif’s backpack for a second. “That sounds exactly like what an evil corporate cafe would do, actually. You got any more?”

“No, you pig. Hey - hands off! This one is mine, and I don’t share food.”

“Don’t be a dick, Dex! Yours was bigger than mine!”

“Get your filthy hands off of my -”

He wasn’t given the chance to finish. Like a snake from its den, Kai’s hand had shot up and torn half of his bagel straight from his hands. Her prize was stuffed into her cheeks before Grif could do anything except gawp at her poppy seeds pockmarking her shit-eating smile.

“Ha,” she snorted with her mouth full. “You lose, dickbag.”

“You’re such a bitch, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Kai said. She took another bite of his bagel.

Grif scowled at her. “Fine, then. I guess I won’t be sharing my donuts with you.”

“You stole _donuts,_ too?! Holy shit, bro, it’s better than Christmas!”

As bad of a liar as Kai was, Grif was hardly any better. The swallow of his throat and side-glancing eyes did not go unnoticed. “Well… not technically. I was just going to buy some.”

“With what cash? Did you start stripping without me? Asshole.”

Another small flourish, this time with a little less confidence on Grif’s part. Forty dollars, all in five dollar bills, fanned out with the extravagance of a peacock’s tail before Kai’s eyes.

Her jaw dropped. “Did you… Dex, did you -”

“Turns out the lock on the cash register isn’t as hard to pick as I thought it would be. Cool, huh?”

“Yeah!” Kai blurted, and then stopped herself. “Wait, no! Dude, you can’t steal from work! You’ll get fired! How are we going to pay our rent?”

“Are you kidding me, Kai?” Grif could feel himself growing more confident by the second. If this is what forty quid could do to him, no wonder rich people were always such pretentious assholes. Having money felt fucking _great_ . He fanned his face with it like a countess lounging on velvet sofa, while waiting for her handsome young suitor to crawl through her bedroom window, before her father married her off to some elderly businessman. “This is more money than I’ve made all week! Donuts, Kai! Think of the _donuts_.”

He could see that Kai was considering it. He had his foot in the door, now all he needed to do was shoulder it open.

The neon sign of _Krispy Kreme_ was a beacon of hope to his empty stomach. Grif could already feel it gurgling in anticipation, could already taste the glaze melting on his tongue.

They walked out feeling like royalty, each of their palms burning underneath a piping hot dozen. The only right thing to do was to gorge them in the parking lot like animals - there was no other way to eat _Krispy Kreme_ , after all.

It had all sort of spiralled from there on out. A couple of leftover sandwiches, a few bills from the till, a coin or two from the tip jar (he never took much from that because, hey, his co-workers were paid just as well as he was). Then - oh, look, a woman had left her scarf on her table, and there was no way she was coming back for it. Kai would like that. It would keep her warm.

He hadn’t seen that man drop those coins - they were already on the floor when he found them.

You know what, that guy had yelled at him three times for supposedly taking his order wrong: he didn’t deserve his expensive watch.

Purses, wallets, the odd piece of jewellery or cufflink as he shook someone's hand. Phones were trickier because people never wanted to put them down, but they were at least a useful distraction for him to liberate the other belongings, and if he did manage to snag a phone, then it would pay for his rent for a fair few weeks (providing he could pawn it off to the right person).

Unlocked cars became his next target. Who left a car unlocked in the middle of Brooklyn, anyway? They were just _asking_ to get robbed. He was just teaching them a lesson, that was all. And it was _winter_ , now. Whoever was stupid enough to leave an apartment window open when it was this cold was probably too stupid notice a missing laptop, or some dumb silverware.

If Kai disagreed with his newfound passion, then she didn’t say it. She was mostly just happy to get their landlord off of their backs, and to actually eat dinner every night.

Grif himself wasn’t even sure that he agreed with it entirely - but one thing was for certain, and it was that one fact that stopped him from ever, well… _stopping_.

Because they never went hungry again.


	5. Suave (a.k.a. please, simmons, for the love of all that is good, for once in your life be cool)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [announcer voice] he jumps! he slips!!!! annddddd he doesnt score bc hes about as atheletic as a brick and oh god now hes crying, please somebody help this poor child up and give him a plaster

It turned out - Simmons discovered, as he hung from his fingertips from his own balcony - that breaking into an apartment was a lot harder than _Breaking Bad_ made it look.

And, weirdly enough, also a lot easier. Or maybe that was just _his_ apartment. No wonder that weird Grif guy had broken in so easily; he’d wondered why he’d never thought to actually check if his windows locked before now. As it turns out, they didn’t.

It also turned out that Simmons was prone to overthinking things even while three fingers away from becoming human street art. How many times had his apartment been broken into, just for the burglar to decide that his belongings weren’t worth it? Grif surely couldn’t have been the first, what with what the news labelled a ‘bad neighbourhood’ and windows that _didn’t even fucking lock_.

Fan-fucking-tastic. He could add that to his every-growing list of _things-that-kept-him-awake-at-night_ , right alongside Donut using the word ‘flower’ in conversation, and strange men insulting his furniture.

The actual breaking in part was laughably easy; Vick was either too stupid, or too cheap, to check that all of the fire doors had rust-free locks and working alarms, and there was only a small gap from the fire escape to the windowsill, and another leap to his balcony.

A baby could have jumped that gap. It was so shallow it quite possibly put Tucker to shame. It was a _tiny_ gap.

Simmons had slipped, because of course he had. His day had apparently not been going badly enough. But, hey - there was always the chance that he would die if he fell the three stories while trying to break into his own balcony, and it filled him with the most meagre amount of happiness to know that he would never need to explain his death to his co-workers.

Or see them ever again.

He could hear the purr of car engines below him, so close to being drowned out by the distant thrum of Brooklyn life. And it wouldn’t be Brooklyn without the constant wail of police sirens every few seconds, knocking between his ears like a hammer.

Well, that was just fantastic, wasn’t it? On the off chance that he didn’t die, he would probably total someone’s car with his broken body and be in debt for the rest of his life.

A car door slammed below him. The siren faded away with the engine, until both were swamped by the city’s chorale.

“Simmons?”

He knew that voice. He was still too scared to look down.

“Hey -” the voice called up again, “Simmons, you okay?”

“I’m fine!” he gasped out, eyes squeezed shut. “Everything’s totally fine!”

“You’re hanging from a balcony.”

He was trying his best not to acknowledge that little detail. “Yeah,” he shouted back. “Yeah, I suppose I am, aren’t I?”

“Hold on - I’m coming up.”

“Take your time.”

Detective Carolina, thankfully, did not take her time. He spotted her hair first, ducking under the window frame, strands of it getting tangled into the jutting nails by the breeze.

By this point, the strain of keeping his grip on the rusted iron railings had made his face turn the same colour as his hair, but even he thought that Carolina was pretty ginger. The fiery, autumnal sort of orange that poets compared to a burnt sienna sunset, and reminded him of smoked whiskey and strumming guitars around campfires: which didn’t suit Carolina at all, really. She wasn’t really a ‘whiskey and campfire’ sort of poem, or a ‘burnt sienna sunset’ person either (whatever that meant).

She was, if anything, pretty fucking terrifying. Nice, sure, but mainly _pretty fucking terrifying_. If any sort of comparison to a sunset was going to happen, it would be because the sun was forced into hiding behind the horizon on account of Carolina probably aiming a bullet at it for getting in her eyes.

“How did you get through my door?” Simmons screeched as Carolina grabbed his wrist and began to haul him back onto solid ground. _Holy hell, she was strong._ He knew he didn’t weigh very much but, Jesus, Carolina carried him like a bunch of grapes.

Maybe Simmons needed to start working out. Maybe he just need to improve on his self-esteem.

Maybe he needed to just fall off of less balconies.

Carolina blinked at him. “I kicked it.”

“You kicked down my door?!”

“You were hanging from a balcony, Simmons. What was I supposed to do?”

Simmons couldn’t think of a good response to that, except possibly, “I mean… _not kick it_.”

“I’ll pay for the door.” She brushed off the dust from his shoulders; her hands were the size of his face and littered in silver scars. “You okay?”

Simmons murmured something of a response, which seemed to sate Carolina’s concern enough for her to grace him with a smile. It wasn’t a particularly pretty smile, but it was hardly ghastly - just unfamiliar, perhaps. It look a little odd on her face, as though someone had doctored it in photoshop. Her freckles didn’t quite mould around it perfectly, and she had a dimple only on one side of her face, which set off her symmetry a little.

But it was a nice smile. It made him remember how much he liked Carolina.

It also reminded him of how awful they both were at small talk. Carolina was too blunt to bother with it, and Simmons was - well, he was Simmons.

“So,” he said, after the silence grew too uncomfortable for him to bear, “you arrived quickly.”

“I was called.” Carolina pointed to the block of flats opposite. “Someone thought you were breaking in and called the cops; it came up on my radio. Not technically my jurisdiction, but it was on my way, and I recognised your address.”

“Oh.” Simmons felt his heart flutter a little. “You were… heading to a crime scene?”

“Yes.”

“A… major crime scene?”

“...yes.”

“Cool, cool.” He bit his lip. This was his chance. _Grab it, Simmons, grab it. Snatch it by the throat and leg it before it gets away._ “I don’t suppose… there would be any chance... that I could come with you, could I?”

Carolina’s eyes narrowed as she studied him. Up and down. Up and down. It was worse than getting examined by Doc, and he instinctively crossed his arms over his chest, as though she could see straight through his clothes.

“Aren’t you an IT guy?”

Simmons felt his shame colouring his cheeks. “I mean, technically. So, what? I might have failed my entrance exam once or twice, or…. It doesn’t matter how many times. I can help. I’m smart. I’ve watched _Buffy_.”

“We’ve all seen _Buffy_ , Simmons.” A tongue ran across her lips. She checked her watch, and then looked back down at her car parked underneath. She sighed. “Fuck it. Come on, then. But be quick.”

“Shotgun!” He pumped his fist into the air, and then pulled it back awkwardly before Carolina saw him. She was in the Major Crimes Unit, after all, so he had to act cool. _Suave_.

Simmons could do suave.

Probably.

With some practice, perhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [pokemon battle music] a wild carolina has appeared!
> 
> hey remember that plot i mentioned a while back? give me some time okay, i swear i can get it to you. please, for the love of god, i have a wife and kids okay??? just give me more time i can get it for you i swear oh god


	6. Fountains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simmons tags along to a crime scene with Carolina, and - unsurprisingly - doesn't have as much fun as he thought he would have.

The ride to the crime scene was… awkward, to say the least. Simmons didn’t get shotgun, either - that privilege went to Epsilon, or _Church,_ as Caboose insisted on calling him, in a heartbreaking attempt to fill the void of his missing best friend.

It was hard to imagine that Carolina - terrifying, fiery-haired-with-a-matching-temper, ex-marine Detective Carolina - had worked in the same military squadron as Caboose had. Caboose was a big guy; the sort of big that made Simmons a little nervous for his skeletal structure every time Caboose lifted him off the ground for one of his signature bear hugs, and he could see why the military might want him as a soldier. A little slow, sure, and certainly cheerful, but Simmons wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alleyway.

But Carolina? Man, she was next level.

 _Was_ being the operative word there. She’d joined the Major Crimes Unit a couple of years back, and Simmons had always wondered if it was because she had been demoted. He didn’t like to get too deep into people’s personal business, anyhow - let alone someone like Carolina - but from what he had gleaned from Tucker, it was looking less like a demotion thing and more like _going crazy rogue and falling entirely off of the grid_ thing.

Something messy had happened, he knew that much. Hell, everyone knew that much. But that was all they knew, because Caboose was useless when it came to things like this, and Carolina was -

She was Carolina.

“Something to do with the Mafia,” Tucker had said. He had that glint in his eye which sometimes meant he was embellishing the truth a little, but knew all too well that it was too good of a story for anyone to call him out on it. “Or some underground crime ring. Diamonds, you know? _Big ones_.”

Simmons had scoffed at him. “They had to get the _military_ to deal with some petty diamond theft?”

“ _P_ _etty?_ ” Tucker had said with feeling. For a moment, Simmons had worried he had actually offended him. Then he remembered that this was Tucker he was talking to, and so he didn’t care. “Oh, Simmons, Simmons, Simmons. These were no _petty_ diamonds. People die for these bad boys. Hell, people have _killed_ for these sweet sons of bitches. I know I would kill for them.”

“I’d kill you for them,” Simmons had said, and Tucker laughed.

“I’d kill you, too, man. Nice to know that we’re on the same page! But, seriously, man, I wouldn’t go fucking around with these gems. Too dangerous for the FBI, CSI, all that crap - they belonged to some rich fucker, someone who clearly pulled rank and borrowed some marines to go scope them out after they were nicked by this, like, crazy good thief. Hid them everywhere like in _Indiana Jones_ , or _Pink Panther,_  or whatever. All Major Crime stuff, way above your head.”

He stretched out in his chair, tugging at one of his dreads idly.

“Why do you think Sarge and Carolina have all of us busting our asses every time even the slightest call mentioning a break-in pops up? If this were some basic bitch _petty theft_ then we’d just be back on vandalism duty.”

Simmons didn’t want to admit it, but Tucker had a point. That, or he was a good enough bullshitter to make it sound like he had a point, and Simmons was just too tired to notice.

Either way, Tucker and Simmons had come to the same conclusion: this whole case? All of these diamonds scattered across the world? Carolina and her shady military past?

_Messy._

And it wasn’t very often that Tucker and Simmons agreed with each other.

Whatever had happened had clearly shaken Carolina. It made Simmons feel guilty, but it was one of the reasons why he had grown so attached to her so quickly: she’d gone through some shit and was clearly suffering. People who were suffering often spotted it in other people, and it made him feel a little less alone in the cripplingly anxious head-space that he lived in.

Carolina understood.

Not enough to give him the front seat over her service dog, but enough.

“Epsilon!” she snapped, and that little worried voice in Simmons’ mind suddenly did a backflip. _Oh, my God, please don’t crash the car._ Instead, Carolina - with practised precision - slowed down enough to let go of the steering wheel with one hand and yanked Epsilon by his collar back inside the car.

Epsilon - Church, whatever - Simmons had to admit, wasn’t the best service dog. He was a rather sour looking Border Collie-Wolfhound mutt with a nasty scar that stretched across his nose, all the way up to his left ear. Carolina had told him once that it was actually Caboose’s doing - he’d been playing around with a knife, or something, and never really did have very good aim. He had another scar on his belly; some expensive surgery, Carolina had explained.

He wasn’t sure why she would pay so much to keep Epsilon alive, since he seemed to cause her _more_ stress than do anything to actually aid her with her PTSD. She’d had another dog - a behemoth of a Doberman that was named simply _Tex_ \- but she’d been violent from the start, and where Carolina excelled in every other aspect of her life, she was desperately lacking in patience.

Caboose had wanted a service dog, too, but if history had taught them anything it was was that Caboose and animals were not a good combination. Tucker had once gotten him a fish; a beautiful little betta that he’d affectionately dubbed ‘Sheila’. Unfortunately, most likely due to Caboose constantly taking her out of her tank to pet her, Sheila hadn’t lasted long under his care.

So, Caboose got Freckles. Freckles couldn’t die, much as he probably tried. A sturdy mobility vehicle, plastered lovingly in every sort of sticker that the human race had ever invented, that - unlike a dog - could actually hold Caboose’s weight if his legs gave out.

“I got a bullet in my knee!” Caboose had explained cheerfully to them one day.

Carolina had confirmed this. “A bullet from his own gun.”

With Epsilon’s head no longer in danger of being sliced off by a road sign, Carolina pulled into a driveway of a house. No, not a house. A fucking _mansion_.

Judging from the dozens of police cars that were already lined up around the fountain that bubbled lazily in the courtyard, they were late to the party - probably, Simmons thought, because Carolina had been forced to take a detour in his direction.

“A _fountain_ ,” Simmons wanted to say to Carolina, and the only thing that stopped him was the fear of embarrassing himself. “They have a _fountain_.”

It was, for lack of a better word, glorious. A little cliché, perhaps, but the craftsmanship of the thick-waisted woman celebrated in the center was undeniable. Simmons almost felt himself blushing at the intensity of her insentient gaze, one hand sculpted to suggest it was midway through a sweeping arc, the climax of a dance, and the artist had frozen her in place as her arm passed the point of her hip. The way her index finger was curved in a graceful, shallow crescent guided them into the water, enticing enough that Simmons nearly wanted to jump in and embrace her reflection as icy water from the geyser bursting from behind her back, encircling her head like a crown, slopped up his thighs.

As he walked closer, the angular words chiselled into the slabs of stone - proclaiming it proudly as _Doyle Estate_ \- glared at him in the afternoon sun.

Instead, he found his awe manifesting as a feeble gesture in it’s direction.

“Cool,” he said, immediately wishing he hadn’t.

Much to his relief, Carolina seemed to agree. “Yeah,” she agreed. “That’s pretty cool.” With uncharacteristic gentleness, she nudged him forward. “Come on, before Epsilon pisses in the fountain. Don’t make me leave you in the car - I can’t promise I’ll crack open a window for you.”

Simmons didn’t need to be told twice.

Another officer that he didn’t recognise greeted them stiffly at the doorway, but Simmons was too entranced by the rest of the house to hear what he had said. Carolina seemed to hear, however, and he followed her vacantly up a staircase, whose pristinely polished mahogany banisters seemed to snaked throughout the entire house.

Carolina seemed to be heading towards the bedroom - surely one of many, but if the arching ceilings and neoclassical touches were anything to judge by, this was the master room.

There were more officers scattered around the room; talking in hushed voices by the vanity table, a few others checking various drawers and hiding spots while making notes or snapping pictures of whatever they had found. Most notably, however, were the two officers near the wardrobe who were struggling to handcuff a man in shabby clothes.

Simmons stared at him.

Grif stared back, frozen.

Holy shit, was this _Grif’s_ house? What an asshole, stealing from Simmons when he had a fucking fountain in his courtyard. No wonder his lawn chair wasn’t good enough.

 _No_. That was stupid. He was being handcuffed; unless this was some elaborate fraud plot, it was unlikely he was the victim here. And he wasn’t looking at Simmons. He was looking at Carolina.

“I know this is going to sound really unbelievable -” he said. Simmons wasn’t sure if he was talking to Carolina, or him, or perhaps just any officer that would listen, “- but this _totally_ isn’t what it looks like.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psst. hey you. PSST HEY YEAH YOU. you... you see this plot im edging here? pretty neat huh. it's on the house man, free of charge, no questions asked. tell no one you saw me.


	7. Weak Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only thing more fun than fainting in front of your coworkers is dying, literally, please, right now I'm begging you, Lord.
> 
> Grif makes a new friend, but Simmons disagrees.

There were only a few things that Simmons hated more than Tucker: one of them was Donut using the word ‘flower’ in reference to his love life, which he still wasn’t quite over, and didn’t think he ever would be.

The other was fainting in front of not only his boss, but half of the officers in her department, as well as some complete and utter _stranger_ who had broken into his apartment less than twenty-four hours prior.

And red peppers. Simmons didn't like those, either, but it didn't quite feel like the time to bring that up.

“This totally isn’t what it looks like,” Grif had said, and then his eyes had panned across from Detective Carolina to stare at Simmons. “ _Holy shit, you’re a cop?_ ”

The statement would have been a lot more meaningful had an officer not been bending him over a table, arms pinned behind his back and his ass grinning at the stars. Simmons was having a hard time - uh, what do you call it? _Thinking_ \- right now, the shock having completely taken over, but the only solid thought that wormed its way into his mind was _this looks like the start to the absolute worst porno ever_.

Carolina stared at him. “You know this guy?” One freckled thumb jerked in Grif’s direction.

“No,” Simmons lied, and regretted it, and didn't realise he was on the floor, heart in his throat, until a second later.

It had been a long day.

 

 

“I swear I didn’t take anything!”

It wasn't that Grif particularly objected to being handcuffed, but - in his experience - there was certainly a time and a place. And, almost ironically, his experiences with handcuffs didn't usually result in being arrested, or thrown in the back of cop cars next to unconscious nerds, while the world’s ugliest dog glowered at him from the front seat.

“This looks really bad,” he kept saying, unsure if this woman could hear him over the roar of her engine, or if she was bothering to listen to him anyway. “Like, this looks _monumentally_ bad. But I’m a victim here, I swear. I haven’t seen that many episodes of _Criminal Minds_ , but I’m pretty sure the technical term for whatever has happened here is _fucking framed._ ”

He heard her hum. He wasn't sure if it was a reply, or if she was just praising that mutt for barking at a nearby jaywalker.

Grif took it as an answer to him; Kai had always told him to be more optimistic.

“Like, yeah,” he continued, because he’d known this woman for approximately ten minutes now, and already knew that that was the extent of her conversation skills, “I guess, _technically_ , I did break into that guy’s house, which, yeah, _technically_ , is illegal. But I didn't steal anything. I know my rights.”

“Breaking and entering is still a crime.”

“Yeah,” Grif shot back, “but it's not like I _stole_ anything. That's a way less serious crime. I could have murdered him in his sleep.” He paused. “I mean, I wouldn't have, and I definitely didn't. But, like, I _could_ have. And that's way worse.”

In the reflection of the rear view mirror, he thought he caught the woman nodding. “That’s true. That is much worse.”

“So, you’ll let me go?”

“No.”

The rest of the car journey was quiet; whoever this woman was, it appeared she wasn't one for small talk, despite Grif’s best efforts. The dog didn’t stop glaring him, even when they arrived at the precinct, but after ten more minutes of being handcuffed to a desk chair next to an old man that looked (if possible) even surlier than the female detective that had brought him in, he figured that maybe this was just a grumpy part of town.

“All right!” Another officer had cheered when the detective had pushed him through the doors, “another arrest for the Blue Team! I’ll grab the marker.”

“Tucker,” the detective had snapped. She clicked her fingers, and Grif got the feeling that if she used too many words at once, the Earth itself would implode. “Take him to Sarge. I’ll grab Simmons. Don’t fuck it up.”

“It’s like ten feet away, boss. I think I can handle that.”

The detective clicked her fingers again. It hinted towards past mishaps that Grif desperately wanted to hear about, perhaps at a later date, when he wasn’t being incarcerated. “Now, Tucker.”

He was switched over to Tucker’s hands, held in a grip that was only marginally looser than his boss’.

“Ow.” Grif winced as Tucker gave him a shove forward. “You wanna take it a little easier, man? This shirt is premium _Walmart_.”

Behind him, Tucker snorted. “Probably should have thought of that before you broke into a guy’s house, buddy.” Another push.

Grif didn’t like to judge people straight away; it was generally too much effort to put into a person he may or may not ever meet again.

But this Tucker?

He wasn't sure he liked Tucker.

 

 

Much to Simmon’s chagrin, it was Donut’s face that greeted him when he woke up.

“Thirty three minutes!” Donut called over his shoulder, and then his face dropped back into his typical, overly-theatrical concern. He’d make a good broadway actor, had his passion not apparently been for the shitty coffee and dubious ethics that were oh-so-important to the police force. “Are you okay?”

Simmons blinked away the lights that flashed in front of his eyes; clinical, cool, the kind that only hospitals and cheap office buildings used (and Simmons was all too familiar with both).

Back in the office, already. How long had his impromptu ‘day off’ lasted? It couldn't have been past midday.

Begrudgingly, Simmons let Donut help him sit up enough to sip some watery coffee from a mug he didn't recognise. He normally didn't drink anything from mugs he didn't own (judging from the states of his coworkers’ desks, it was a wonder the entire building hadn't been quarantined as a health hazard), and the coffee itself wasn't sweet enough for Simmons to stomach, but he appreciated that Donut was trying.

Donut was good at that.

Simmons wet his lips; his tongue was like sandpaper, and his head felt more shattered than his dignity. Slowly, his surroundings began to materialise back into his line of sight, and he recognised his makeshift bed as the greying linoleum of  the shared employee kitchen. For just a second, he wondered who had let Caboose leave his radio on one of his shows with the volume turned up to his preferred ear-shattering volume. It wasn't until a moment later, as the puzzle pieces of his brain began to slot themselves back into place, that Simmons managed to pinpoint the source of the voices as Sarge’s office.

“Thirty - what?”

“Nothing,” Donut said, in a way that sounded like it was something. “Just - a little bet with Tucker over how long you’d stay knocked out. I said you’d be up within the hour, and you were!” A thick hand clapped him on the back. He almost appreciated Donut for not mentioning whatever Tucker had bet. “I believed in you, buddy!”

Simmons took another sip of coffee, forcing himself to keep it down. Even existing - let alone drinking - felt like such an _effort_. “I’m going to pretend you didn't say any of that, and you're going to split your winnings with me later on.”

The voices were getting louder. Something hard (he assumed Carolina’s fist) slammed down into something that, Simmons determined from the cracking sound that followed, was decidedly less hard (he assumed literally anything else).

Donut shrugged, before Simmons could even open his mouth. “They’ve been talking with that guy since you came back. Did you really catch him breaking into Donald Doyle’s house?”

It was a struggle to remember anything at all. “Uh,” Simmons said, and sipped again at his drink, “yeah.”

He struggled to his feet, only taking the hand that Donut offered him a second too late and finding his shirt wet with more coffee. “I’ll go see if they're okay. I need to apologise to Carolina. And Sarge. And probably Epsilon, since I’m pretty sure I almost landed on him when I fell.”

“Hey, woah, take it easy, buddy.” For the first time in the - God, how many years had it been? - that Simmons had known Donut, he had never looked this sincere. It almost felt blasphemous to see his face twisted into such an expression, as though reality itself rejected the idea that Donut was anything other than garishly upbeat.

This time, Simmons didn't flinch away from one of Donut’s hugs. “Sorry we annoyed you earlier. Please take care of yourself.”

Simmons thought back to two hours ago, when he had been hanging from the tips of his fingers from his own balcony. He returned Donut’s smile and forced himself to chug the rest of the mug of coffee.

“You know I always do.”

 

 

Much like every door in the precinct, the door to Sarge’s office creaked as Simmons pushed it open. If it hadn’t, in fact, Simmons might have been a little worried as to where their budget was going (since he did a little of the team’s accounts on the side) - after all, squeaky doors had nothing on the tiny ecosystem living in the office carpets (which, by Simmons’ exact calculations, would discover space travel in shortly under a week).

He caught Carolina’s eyes straight away; she was hunched over the junkyard that Sarge liked to call his desk, while Sarge grumbled quietly in the corner, the deep lines of his face bubbling like a pot threatening to over boil. Grif had been handcuffed to the office chair. He didn't look very happy.

“You’re awake,” Carolina said as Simmons shuffled into the room. “Your binder is on your desk - I took it off so you could breathe. Sorry.”

Simmons hadn’t noticed he wasn't wearing his binder until now, and as soon as Carolina had said it, he suddenly felt naked. He nodded professionally, turning to the side so nobody would see him cross his arms across his chest. He shot Sarge a thin smile.

“Nice nap, Simmons?” Sarge said, and only shut up when Carolina sent him one of her signature glares. Simmons was sure she would have slapped him, had him and Grif not been there to witness it; he’d always admired Carolina’s militant professionalism in the presence of a perp.

“I don’t mean to interrupt -” Simmons had started to say, before the dawning recognition on Grif’s face managed to catch up with his mouth.

“ _You_.” If Grif’s hands hadn't been locked behind his back, he surely would have lost an arm throwing a finger in Simmons’ direction. “Dude! I’m so glad you’re here.”

Simmons felt himself wither under Carolina’s stare. “He keeps saying that,” she said flatly, but Simmons could just about detect the hint of interest buried under her voice. “You two know each other?”

“No,” said Simmons, at the same time as Grif said, “Yes”.

Simmons cleared his throat. “He - uh - broke into my house the other day.”

Carolina raised an eyebrow. Sarge looked like he was about to combust.

“ _And_ ,” Grif said, before Simmons had a chance to continue, “I didn’t steal anything! Tell ‘em, Frodo!”

“You didn’t think to report this?” Carolina crossed her arms. If it weren’t for her, he was pretty sure that Sarge would have torn him to shreds by now. Not that he had done anything particularly devastating by not reporting a minor break-in, but just because tearing people to shreds seemed to be one of Sarge’s hobbies (if not his only).

“Well,” Simmons said, and coughed into his hand. “I mean… I suppose I didn’t see much of a reason to, since… technically, yeah, he didn’t actually take anything. Except possibly my self-esteem.”

“Replaceable,” he heard Sarge mutter under his breath, “if proven to previously exist.”

Ouch. True, but _ouch_.

“This seems to be a habit of yours.” Carolina had turned her attention back onto Grif, much to Simmons’ relief: was it getting hot in here? Or had he left his medication at home alongside his keys and his will to live? “It still doesn’t explain why you would break into the house of one of America’s most esteemed politicians and leave without filling your pockets with at least a trinket, or two.”

 _Maybe he just broke in to judge his interior design choices_ , Simmons thought, and stopped himself from saying aloud just in time. “Did Doyle report anything missing?” he said instead. Mentally, he scrolled through his training - it had been a year or so since he had last applied to be, well, _literally anything than just a tech guy_ , but he was pretty sure sympathising with criminals wasn’t top of the list.

But, hell, if the sheen of sweat that had formed across Grif’s forehead (making him look like something not dissimilar to a postcard that Donut had once sent him of Victoria Falls) then Grif was, quite possibly, having an even worse day than he was.

Carolina shook her head. “He’s coming in later today to make a formal statement after his house has been properly searched, but he did say that nothing looked out of order.”

Sarge snorted. “Aside from the fatass in his bedroom.”

With almost sage-like confidence that Simmons wasn’t quite sure he had ever felt before, he nodded. Words and pictures were running through the mechanisms of his mind like a printer-press, one after the other, but none of the results seemed to quite add up. And - let’s face it, Simmons thought - Grif didn’t exactly _look_ like a master thief. He had given him money and a God-damn _pizza recommendation_. Most thieves weren't exactly in the habit of doing that.

“I think -” Simmons said, and was all too aware of three pairs of eyes boring so deep into his body that he was sure that, when he turned around, six perfectly circular scorch marks would blink back at him from the back wall, “- if you don’t mind me saying, boss - but I think I believe him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY LEMME GET A UHHHHHHHHHHH NEW CHAPTER AND A SIDE O' FRIES THANKS
> 
> hmu at queerglorfindel on tumblr to tell me how much of a Premium Doofus i am for restarting work on this fic literally as soon as my second term at university begins thanks


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